


not to break

by SiriCerasi



Series: hc_bingo [3]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Angst, Broken People Saving Each Other, Community: hc_bingo, Depression, F/M, Fixing Things is Easier than Fixing Yourself, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Len-centric, M/M, Or How Len was Adopted by a Robot, POV Leonard Snart, Post-Episode: s01e07 Marooned, Suicidal Thoughts, The Origin of 1812
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-05
Updated: 2016-11-05
Packaged: 2018-08-29 04:21:45
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8475154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SiriCerasi/pseuds/SiriCerasi
Summary: He only fixes the robot because he had, technically, broken it.
Or, Len is lost without Mick, Sara and Gideon try to help, and Len is adopted by robots.Written for my hc_bingo fill "depression".





	

**Author's Note:**

> Please please please note the tags, this is... a really weird mix of fluff and very dark angst with very little comfort. It's a fairly personal piece so I'm kind of hesitant to post it but. Here we are.
> 
> This is a sort of companion piece to [child, be still](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7752808/chapters/17677549), but it basically stands on its own.
> 
> [terrible love](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqHdi_94SR4) (the national)

_**xxx** _

_it's a terrible love that i'm walking in_

_**xxx** _

Without Mick, he feels lost in more ways than one.

The betrayal hurts, of course. The loss of a friend, a partner. But more importantly, he'd needed Mick because Mick needed him. He'd needed to know someone depended on him, relied on him to keep the world turning right. Were he back home, it wouldn't be a problem; this had happened before, although never so dramatically. Len had retreated, licked his wounds, but Lisa would never let him fall too far. Lisa had always needed him, until suddenly she hadn't. Because she's gotten on fine these past few times he's been in jail, and she has the Rogues to look out for her now. She doesn't need Len, not the way she had, not with singular importance. And now Mick - now Mick is gone, and it leaves Len foundering in ways he shudders to think about.

_**xxx** _

_i can't fall asleep_

_**xxx** _

He feels so alone on this ship, in the middle of goddamn outer space, that it physically hurts. It's like a hole in his chest, like his ribs are caving in. Sara helps, that first night, when it feels like the entire world is crashing down around him. She's a warmth beside him chasing out the dark, the cold, the numbness pressing in. But then she's gone, and he doesn't have it in him to seek her out. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

_**xxx** _

_without a little help_

_**xxx** _

He hits the robot by accident, on his way out the door in the middle of the night to sneak some food from the kitchen. It's dark - he'd asked Gideon to keep the lights off, to prevent unnecessary social contact, and he walks right into the thing on his way out the door. He yelps, swallows curses in an age-old need to remain quiet even in pain, _especially_ in pain. His eyes water and he wonders for a moment if his toe is broken, but some cautious wiggling suggests not. "You did that on purpose, didn't you," he hisses at the ceiling. Gideon doesn't answer, naturally.

There's a garbled sound from the offending object, and Len kneels down to see that he'd managed to knock one of the bumpers part-way off the little robot. It moves forward a little, as though testing its movement, and bumps gently into Len's foot before making a noise that sounds like an error code. Len sighs.

"Gideon, I think your pet is broken."

"Actually, Mr. Snart, I believe _you_ broke it." Len groans, and the robot bumps into him again with a noise that sounds decidedly sad. "Oh, for fuck's sake," Len growls. He picks the thing up and stomps back into his room, putting it on his desk with a glare. " _Stay_."

"It's not a dog, Mr. Snart." He doesn't dignify that with a response, just stomps out of the room to the robot's sad little noises. He is going to get food if he has to step on every goddamn robot on the way.

_**xxx** _

_it takes a while to settle down_  
_my shiver bones_

_**xxx** _

He only fixes the robot because he had, technically, broken it.

Besides, he likes working with his hands. He likes taking things apart to learn how they work, likes that they go back together so perfectly. So _right_. Pieces of a puzzle falling neatly into place.

So, he fixes the robot.

The next day, another one shows up, this time with a crooked wheel.

Len rolls his eyes, glares at the ceiling, and pulls out his tools.

_**xxx** _

_until the panic's out_

_**xxx** _

He's been curled on his bed for an indeterminate number of hours, staring absently at the wall in a half-doze, when there's a strange knocking on his door. Too low and metallic sounding.

Len groans and pulls his blankets over his head.

He can still hear the door when it swishes open, and the little beeps he's come to associate with Gideon's first robot pet. This time, it trills at him repeatedly, almost like a question, until he throws off his blankets in frustration and yells, "What do you _want_." It shrinks back a little, and Len feels annoyingly, disgustingly awful. It's a goddamn robot. It's not a person, it's not a little boy.

It's also holding a package of cookies in a little retractable claw he'd never noticed before.

Len feels a smile creep onto his face, and he holds out a hand with a sigh. "C'mere." It zooms toward him, stopping just close enough for him to grab the snack. "Thank you," he says, not entirely sure why he's thanking a robot. He has no idea how much intelligence they have; they seem to follow spoken commands well enough, and Gideon can communicate with them. He thinks about asking her, but decides he'd look far too interested. Still, it warbles softly in response, so he figures it must've understood something.

He flops back onto his pillow with a groan, sighs to the wall, "I'm losing my mind."

_**xxx** _

_it's quiet company_

_**xxx** _

It's been days now since he's seen another human being, something he hadn't thought possible the first time he boarded the Waverider. It's just not big enough for that, not unless everyone involved is making a concentrated effort. Which, apparently, everyone is.

It doesn't _hurt_ , exactly. Nothing can come close to the pain Mick had left, that gaping hole in his chest. Next to that, everything just fades into vague flickers of disappointment and disquiet. After a few days, it doesn't even register anymore. The passage of time no longer seems to affect him, especially here, where there are no real days and nights, only what Gideon fabricates. He could grow old and die here without a ripple.

Naturally, Sara ruins that plan.

He tries to be angry that she's in his space uninvited, that she curls up at the end of his bed like she belongs there with her cards (or maybe his, but he's lost track of how many times they've stolen them back and forth and forgotten whose they were to begin with). But it's somehow impossible to stay mad at her, not when she pouts so adorably at losing games of solitaire.

Not when she talks him down from the edge of panic after waking from a nightmare, when she stays with him in the pressing darkness and chases Mick's phantom presence away.

_**xxx** _

_but i won't follow you_  
_into the rabbit hole_

_**xxx** _

He almost feels okay for an entire day, and it's like the world moves in color again, like the haze fogging his brain clears to let him breathe. It can't last; he knows it can't last, but he clings to it with every fiber of his being all the same.

_**xxx** _

_i said i would_

_**xxx** _

His fingers heal, but he wears gloves for days to keep the bruises from sight. It terrifies him a little, what he'd done; his hands are arguably the most valuable thing he has, and without Gideon's aid, he has no doubt most of his fingers would be effectively useless. He never loses control like that, can't afford to, hasn't dared risk it since the day Lisa came home and suddenly, his life wasn't his. Wasn't his to give away.

Now, suddenly, for the first time in thirty odd years - it is.

It terrifies him.

_**xxx** _

_but then i saw your shiver bones_

_**xxx** _

There's a closet in the engine room that Len, in his casing of the ship, had deemed "ship maintenance". He's seem the robots disappear into it, so he assumes it's where they charge and repair. The morning after his... _incident_ , hands still aching and bruised, he ventures down with a large thermos of coffee and peers inside. Sure enough, as though they'd been waiting for him, he finds a small herd of the robots collected inside. Some have obvious repair needs; others need cleaning; some don't really appear to need anything at all, but seem to want a dusting anyway. Len figures it's the least he can do to thank Gideon for saving his fingers.

A few hours into his work, he hears a familiar little trill, and turns to find his robot ( _his?_ ) behind him, carrying a variety of packaged foods all neatly stashed in a plastic bin balanced on its back. Len can't help smiling, and takes the offering with a "thank you". He's about three quarters of the way through his work, so a large number of the robots have wandered off to their normal business, but his doesn't leave.

"Do you have a number or something?" he asks it, tilting his head. They must have make and model numbers. Or designations from Gideon. "Gideon?"

"Perhaps you'd like to name it," comes the reply, and he sits there for the next five minutes trying to determine just how snide she's being. She'd been the one to tell him it wasn't a dog, after all. But if it's going to follow him around and bring him gifts, he supposes he might as well have something to call it.

"1812," he answers. Gideon says nothing, and Len decides it's something they're probably both going to pretend never happened. But the robot trills a little pattern, over and over, until Len realizes it's Morse Code for '1812'.

"Yeah, buddy. That's you."

_**xxx** _

_they didn't want me to_

_**xxx** _

Gideon's leniency does not extend to decoration, Len learns the following day.

After threatening to keep his room at disturbingly high temperatures, he relents. And then promptly flips through her blind spots he'd already mentally cataloged, and heads down to the cargo bay. Which is, conveniently, located near the storage room, and connected by air ducts he is unfortunately too large to squeeze through.

They're the perfect size, however, for a certain little robot.

He whistles out '1812' in Morse Code, and grins when a few minutes later, 1812 comes creeping out of the hole where Len had pulled off a wall panel. He'd already acquired some paint, and sets to work on his new little friend, who sits still but trills apprehensively. Len begins to whistle again, and each time 1812 copies him, or fills in the next line if Len pauses.

He's quite pleased with the results when he's done. He carefully cleans up, making sure to erase any signs he's been there, and sends 1812 back into the hole before recovering it .

Gideon is particularly snippish for the rest of the day, and no one can quite fathom why.

_**xxx** _

_it's a terrible love_  
_and i'm walking in_

_**xxx** _

The bruises on his hands fade slowly, and he finds himself scared of the day they're finally gone. They stand out on his skin like the marks of debts owed, fading reminders that his life is not his own to give. Cruel admonitions it is not his to take.

He needs more reminders of that now than ever before.

The day he takes his gloves off he doesn't leave his room, spends hours alternating between staring motionless at the ceiling and tossing and turning like something possessed. The knock on his door surprised him; it's been days since he's seen another human being, and he'd nearly forgotten he shares the ship with anything other than robots.

It's Sara; of course it's Sara. And she looks somehow worse than him, pale and haunted and nearly vibrating with a shame and self-hatred he understands far too well. There are bruises on her arms, a small cut on her cheek; he wonders if they'd leapt from his skin to hers.

It's the first time she's let him see her this vulnerable, this open, and he can't help wondering if on some level she'd _known_. Known that once he draws her in, once she's shared that broken part of herself with him and pieced their jagged edges into something resembling whole - he's no longer entirely his own.

And for the first time since Mick had torn himself from Leonard's life, Len thinks he might live long enough to mend that wound.

_**xxx** _

_it takes an ocean  
not to break_

_**xxx** _

**Author's Note:**

> I realize this ending may offend some (most?) people, so here is a quick note on a quote I both love and hate: "I am mine before I am anyone else's". I think it is a lovely ideal. I also _know_ that, if I were only mine, I would be dead. So, I will just leave that here.
> 
> I apologize for any errors, this is largely unedited because I wanted to get it up before I backed out of posting it. I may edit in the future.


End file.
